To Destroy or Not To Destroy?

By Seth -
Imagine the following scenario: the apartment building in which I live is condemned (some days, this is easier to imagine than others). The administration summons the demolition team, which prepares to raze the complex.

In their hastiness, though, the administration forgot to inform the residents of the date of demolition. The wrecking ball is poised for action, but suddenly the chief administrator remembers the hundreds of habitants who may or may not be inside the building.

What should he do? Go onward with the demolition and bring the building down? After all, it is possible that there is no human being inside. Perhaps they are all at work or school.

Or, should he err on the side of caution, call off the demolition until he is confident there is no human being inside?

Would anyone choose the former option over the latter---to demolish a building before checking to make sure there is no one inside? I doubt it, unless their moral compass were askew.

Why, then, has such thinking been embraced by many in the debate on abortion?

In the majority opinion following the infamous Roe v Wade ruling, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question."

According to Blackmun, we do not know when life begins. It is possible that the fetus is a human life. And, it is possible that it is not. Blackmun argues that we simply do not know (which he roots in the lack of a consensus).

By Blackmun's own admission, then, an abortion may take the life of a human being. But, since we do not know for sure---we go ahead and endorse the act anyway.

What would happen if the administration of my apartment complex did the same thing? There might be a lack of consensus among the leaders as to whether or not anyone were inside the building. They would have to admit that it is possible there are people inside and it is possible there are not.

What if, then, they decided to give a green light to the wrecking ball anyway?

We would hold them responsible, because they ought to have erred on the side of caution.

Why, then, do we not, at the very least, err on the side of caution when it comes to the unborn?

This does not even begin to take into consideration the mass of scientific evidence that life indeed begins at conception. I am merely basing this upon the arguments employed often by those like former Justice Blackmun.

For, even if they were right and we did not know when life begins, just as in other situations we ought to at the very least err on the side of caution---and not send in the demolition crew.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meet a Baby Saved

By Seth -
Image
In the middle of high school, I began to spend Thursdays throughout summer on Webster Street in Fort Wayne, IN. Good friend and stalwart defender of life Pam Durdahl called Thursday “the best and worst day of the week.” It was the best because you were with like-minded people—indeed, this is where I met Aubrie! But, what brought us all together is why it was the worst: This was the day each week when Ulrich Klopfer would come to town to kill babies. Details continue to be released in the horrific discovery this month that Klopfer stored babies’ bodies in the garage at his Illinois residence. But one note which grabbed my attention is that these babies died in the years of 2000-2002, the latter half of my high school days. All of these babies came from Indiana. And now we know some of them died in Fort Wayne, meaning while I was on that sidewalk, Klopfer was killing babies and taking them home. It seems it was not enough for him to violate the victims once. I didn’t know the...
Read more

Deeper than Shared Conviction

By Seth -
Image
If you were to stumble into the Created Equal training center this summer, you would find an interesting sight: an Ivy League graduate seated next to a high school senior, a vegan student enjoying a salad next to another savoring a hamburger, and hands shooting into the air or sudden applause as all passionately defend their position on a range of philosophical matters. This eclectic scene is Created Equal’s internship. At the beginning of the summer, our latest band of interns arrived with the usual awkwardness felt at the beginning of a school term. But what has united them over the past couple of months is far greater than the happenstance of selecting the same college course. Indeed it is deeper than shared conviction. Over the past two months, they’ve celebrated victories both intimate and public—from hearing a mother outside Planned Parenthood say she has changed her mind to watching the Ohio Senate pass the Dismemberment Abortion Ban. They’ve grappled in our classroom...
Read more

Out of Focus?

By Seth -
The Columbus Dispatch today ran a story about the Personhood initiative's arrival in the land of the Buckeyes. The article also referenced other recent Ohio efforts against abortion, such as the Heartbeat Bill . What leaped off of my screen, though, was the first comment following the piece: It's unfortunate with 9% unemployment, children and adults starving in the street, people losing their homes, crime rates increasing, and corporations buying our politicians, these people are fighting to make abortion illegal. We have freedom of religion in this country, but they want to impose their religious ideology on us, in this secular nation. People can't find jobs, and children go without food. The most important thing on their mind is making abortion illegal. Jesus would be appalled at these people. Don't believe me? Read the Holy Bible. Jesus never spoke about abortion. But he did speak a lot about helping the poor and the homeless. - Toni Goodman Here's an experim...
Read more